


my guy pretty like a girl

by Talls



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Complicated Relationships, Everyone in the MASH unit wishes to know Hawkeye carnally, Hawkeye in a dress, I projected a lot of gender onto hawkeye but that's what Hawkeye's for, Infidelity, Love in a war zone, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 22:41:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29497470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talls/pseuds/Talls
Summary: In which Hawkeye wears a dress for the glory of the 4077th and BJ reacts like any normal person would under the circumstances.
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce
Comments: 39
Kudos: 102





	my guy pretty like a girl

**Author's Note:**

> Hawkeye in a dress fic!!!! This fic is dedicated to mia/dykemulcahy who immediately jumped on the post I made about hawkeye in a dress and then inspired some of the scenes that made this fic happen! I'd like to thank juice/hotelyear for looking this over before it was good and cheering me on and della/fieryphrases for recommending me period appropriate songs.
> 
> Very very very special thanks to a.s/herrlichersonnigertag who beta'ed this story, and carefully and kindly held my hand through the edits through a migraine! title is from frank ocean's Chanel, which I think is a beej song imo idk why it's about the vibes 
> 
> without further adieu, I hope you enjoy hawkeye in a dress :)

The stupid thing is that it’s all BJ’s fault. You and the rest of the surgical staff were at the 8063rd for a demonstration by their new whiz kid Chief Surgeon, Dr. Buchanan, who was making a real hash of things. Charles was heckling him in his own Charles way, and with every pointed barb, the doctor’s delivery got worse. You felt bad for Buchanan, but what was supposed to be a thirty minute presentation was well into its second hour, and you didn’t really have to be the sharpest scalpel on the tray to figure out the subject material. 

“In fact, even our Chief Surgeon, a man I loathe as much as I’ve loathed anyone, is twice the doctor you are and three times the man,” you remember Charles thundering. 

“And four times the woman,” BJ chimed in, inadvertently kicking off this whole debacle. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Buchanan asked defensively. 

“Oh, Charles is just saying that I’m a better woman than you,” you chimed in, not yet realizing you were sealing your fate like a coffin. After that, the conversation snowballed in ways that you couldn’t have predicted in years, and suddenly you were being pitted against Dr. Buchanan in a pageant, woman to woman. 

Potter, Margaret, Colonel Herman, and Nurse Marshall set up the rules, which were as follows: Both contestants must wear a dress. Both contestants must take the competition seriously. Both contestants must perform a special skill that demonstrates their natural talents. The surgeon who wins gets a weekend of leave for himself, his fellow surgeons and his entire nursing staff. They’ll be judged by a panel of South Korean locals who will only be selected on the day of the pageant, to prevent judge tampering. 

“If it seems like either one of you is making a mockery of this,” Colonel Herman growled, bright red with anger after forty minutes of heated debate with both Potter and Margaret. “I will come down on your head like the fist of an angry god.” 

You and Buchanan - who really isn’t a bad doctor, just a little nervous giving presentations - locked eyes and smiled uneasily in agreement. Now, here you are a week later with no wounded expected for the next four days, picking out a dress from the retired Klinger collection. 

“Captain, I put the ones that would fit you on that rack over there,” Klinger says.

BJ moves to the rack and starts flipping through the dresses, occasionally holding one up to you and shaking his head. 

“How about this one, Jeeves?” you ask in a British accent, holding up a long red dress with thin straps. BJ narrows his eyes and stands straight up, like he was ironed with starch. 

“Oh, sir,” he responds in his own most stuck-up British accent. “That is far too, shall we say, provocative, for the Drones club. Perhaps something in a modest dove grey?” 

“Oh, pish-tosh, Jeeves, skinny straps are all the mode these days. However, I see your point, perhaps it would look a little out of place,” you respond in your silliest aristocratic voice. BJ grins at you in delight. “I think this color looks bally delightful on my skin, don’t you?” you say, grabbing a canary yellow frock. 

“In a word, sir,” BJ says, snatching it out of your hands, “no.” 

“Hey, easy with the merchandise,” Klinger says, taking the dress away from BJ, who feigns an appropriate amount of remorse. “Besides, canary would look terrible on you, Captain, no offense.” 

“Come on, Klinger, give me a break here, I’ve never gone dress shopping before. Don’t you have any recommendations?” you ask, dropping the character.

“Well, sir, if you were going to ask me, I’d suggest either this one,” he says, grabbing a blue one with a low back, “or this one,” grabbing a red one with sequins. 

“What do you think, Beej, blue or red?” you ask BJ. He makes a contemplative face and then grabs a completely different dress off the rack. 

“How about this purple one as a compromise?” he says, showing you the violet dress in his hand. 

“Oh, BJ, no, that’s far too garish,” Klinger says. 

“But I am compelled by it,” you say, mesmerized by the way the embroidery catches the dim light. “It’s a deal.” 

“Well, I guess there really isn’t any accounting for taste,” Klinger grumbles, handing the dress over to you. “I’ll come to Margaret’s tent later and tailor it to you a bit better.” 

“I’ll trust that the dress is safe in your hirsute hands,” you say.

One shower later and you’re starting to see why Klinger’s advice may have been prudent after all. 

“This dress is a nightmare,” you grouse, trying to see if contorting into a backbend will make this process easier. BJ makes a vaguely interrogative noise where he’s reading on his cot.

“It’s the zipper,” you answer, dropping out of that pose and trying another. 

“What’s the problem?” BJ asks, closing the book and looking over as you contort yourself into more and more chiropractically inadvisable positions. 

“The zipper is jammed at the small of my back, and it’s murder to try and reach it,” you says, right before you leans over too far, trip over one of your boots and topple across your cot. BJ’s laughter drifts between you as he surveys you splayed on your bed, awkward and disheveled. 

“Let me help,” BJ says through chuckles, making his way over and offering you a hand up. You lever yourself upwards on his unsettlingly strong arm. 

“My knight in olive drab,” you simper and BJ bows over your hand in a parody of chivalric romanticism, before spinning you around neatly to assess the damage. “What's the prognosis, doc?” you ask to offset the strange set of nerves that have overtaken you. 

“Well, I’m definitely going to have to operate,” BJ says in faux consternation. You feel the breath of his words on your shoulder, and try to repress a corresponding shiver. “But I think you’ll be able to keep the bodice.” 

“Oh thank god. You know I got this bodice from my father as an heirloom?” you ask as BJ begins to smooth the fabric down, sending electricity skittering up your spine with every inadvertent caress.

“Oh?” BJ asks, as he tugs the zipper gently. The zipper doesn’t budge, and BJ tries once more, this time with slightly more force, almost pulling you into his chest. 

“Yeah, it fit him perfectly, but we had to tailor it for my generous bust,” you say, your mouth running with neither your permission nor supervision. BJ’s breath comes in gentle waves of warm and cool air against the nape of your neck, and the heat of his body warms your back. That along with the strange intimacy of the whole ritual would be enough to drive a sane man crazy: you don’t want to think about what it’s doing to you. “The skirt I got from my mother,” you continue. 

“Tall woman,” BJ murmurs, his fingers warm through the thin fabric of the dress. One of his hands pinches some of the fabric together, and you feel the faint pressure of his thumbnail against your back. The zipper gives a bit of ground but gets snagged on the way up. BJ makes a slight noise of frustration and your pulse jolts again. You open your mouth to speak, but BJ preempts you with a quiet, “Suck in your chest for me.” 

You inhale sharply, sucking in the organs in your abdomen to give BJ some leeway. BJ moves his hands on your back again, his knuckles pressing into your skin, before he tugs the zipper once, twice. On the third attempt, the zipper finally dislodges and slides upwards fast enough that BJ jerks forward, his nose brushing against your ear for a second. 

You expect BJ to pull away immediately, but BJ’s fingers linger at the top of the dress. 

“You can breathe out now,” BJ rumbles in your ear, and you exhale in a gust, having forgotten that you were holding your breath at all. The exhalation is enough to dislodge BJ’s fingers, though not before he smooths down the back of the dress a final time. “There,” BJ says quietly. 

You turn to face him, only for the words to die in your mouth. BJ’s face is suddenly inches from yours and you think that the oddness of the encounter may not all be in your head. 

“How do I look?” you ask quietly. BJ doesn’t respond on beat like he usually does and you feel like all of the air has been vacuumed out of the Swamp, like the next thing either of you says will light a fuse and the whole camp will go up in flames. 

“You look nice,” BJ finally says, something raw in his voice. You sway forward and something shutters in his eyes. “The dress suits you,” he says in a blank tone, stepping away and turning to his cot, leaving you reeling in his wake. He picks up a stack of paper and sits down, facing away from you. 

You blink at him in a daze before you shake yourself out of it. “I’m going to finish getting ready with Margaret and Klinger,” you say, when nothing witty or urbane comes to mind. You grab your robe and put it on over the dress. “I’ll see you at showtime.” 

“Good luck in there,” BJ says, still not quite looking at you. You stare at him for a few more seconds before turning and walking out of the Swamp.

*

As soon as you walk into Margaret’s tent, she starts waving a razor at you. Dad’s been saying you should expect this at some point, given your behavior in OR, but for some reason the visual still catches you off guard. 

“Margaret, if you get my blood on this dress, Klinger will kill me,” you say, holding your hands up. “At least wait until after the pageant when I’m back in my fatigues.”

“Pierce, your jokes always make me so nostalgic,” Margaret says, narrowing her eyes and noticeably not dropping the knife. 

“Oh?” 

“Yes, for those halcyon days when I was five and might have laughed at them,” she finishes and you grin in acknowledgement of her hit. 

“Excuse me, I find I’m rarely at my comedic best under threat of a knife. I prefer to be on the opposite side of the blade, it’s why I went into surgery. It was that or be a butcher, but I don’t have the shoulders to work with cleavers.” 

“Well, you’re in luck, I have the perfect job for you and it requires no shoulder muscle whatsoever,” Margaret says, smirking. She flips the razor in her hand and offers it to you, handle first. “Shave your legs.” 

“Oh, no no no no,” you say, backing away as fast as you can. “No, that’s where I draw the line.” 

“Don’t be such a baby,” Margaret snaps. You widen your eyes in indignation. 

“Margaret, I refuse to shave my legs for this farce. You know I have to keep the legs after the pageant is over, right? What’ll the boys in the locker room say?” 

“I cannot believe you would let your silly masculine scruples stand between this camp and victory,” Margaret chides, brandishing the razor at you with the clear threat of violence. 

“These aren’t just silly masculine scruples. I’ll have you know I get a great deal of use out of my body hair during the winter months here.” 

“Oh, but think of how lovely the hot summer nights will feel,” Margaret counters sweetly. 

“You know, I can’t believe you’re going along with this the way you are,” you say, partially to deflect. “After all the abuse you’ve hurled at Klinger over the years, I was sure you would decry this as perversion.” 

“Please,” Margaret says, rolling her eyes. “That was about the section eight, and you know it. Besides, this is for a good cause!” 

“You consider inflating my ego a good cause? That’s a dangerous thing to say to a man with a god complex.” 

“Oh, I don’t care about any of that. This isn’t about you or Dr. Buchanan, this is about the glory of the 4077,” Margaret says, the spirit of righteous red-blooded American competition filling her eyes. “Besides, Nurse Marshall has been talking smack about how nice Buchanan looks from the back in his outfit, and it’s got my back up.” 

“Well, you know my back’s just a front for my modeling side-business,” you say, smirking. 

“As long as your business is shaved in the next fifteen minutes, I don’t care which side it’s on,” Margaret says pointedly, once again gesturing wildly with the razor. 

“Come on, Margaret, can’t we compromise?” you beg, appealing to her sense of pity. “How about I tape the hair down so it doesn’t run around during dinner? Maybe I could just wear a floor-length skirt?” 

“Absolutely not, we’re trying to win, not get you into a convent, you’re gonna show skin or lose it,” Margaret says, standing firm. 

You narrow your eyes at her. Margaret narrows her eyes at you. 

“I’ll shave my underarms,” you offer, in what you think is a very generous concession. 

“You’ll shave your underarms and your legs to your hemline and you’ll wear nylons to boot,” she counters and you nod, taking the razor. This war has taught you that some battles just aren’t worth the fight. Also, you have no doubt that Margaret will pin you and force the matter, and you want to preserve what little pride you have left. 

Halfway through the miserable and unending shaving process, Klinger comes in with a box of cosmetics. 

“Captain, thank god you’re shaving, I’m all out of nylons,” he says, dropping the box in front of Margaret. 

“I’ll just borrow one of Margaret’s,” you say, shrugging.

“You most certainly will not,” Margaret says flatly. “Shave to an inch above the hemline. Klinger, what have you brought me?” 

“Major, I was thinking we could go for a classic Hollywood style, tasteful eye makeup and a matte red lip,” Klinger says, rustling through the bag. 

“Klinger, I asked for your cosmetics, not your opinion. Besides, I was planning on a bolder, more modern look,” she says, plucking a few compacts and pencils out of the box. Klinger eyes her selection with apprehension. “I was thinking these two together would make a statement,” she says, showing off to Klinger out of your line of sight. 

“Oh no, we couldn’t,” Klinger says, genuinely appalled from what you can tell. “That combination would look clownish on him.” 

“Since I wore this exact color combination two nights ago, I think I’ll object to your use of the word clownish,” Margaret says, glaring. 

“Excuse me, Major, but I said it would look clownish on him, not that the combination was clownish. You have completely different colorings,” Klinger fires back, getting in her face about it. 

“He’s got blue eyes, and the violet will make them pop, what about that coloring isn’t clicking for you?” Margaret asks belligerently. 

“The part where you pair it with a glossy coral lipstick instead of this neutral shade,” Klinger retorts, selecting one of the lipsticks from the box of cosmetics. 

“We’re going to put violet eye shadow on him and that’s final,” Margaret growls. 

“Feel free, Major, but if you try and stick him with a lip color more pigmented than this matte right here,” Klinger says, brandishing the aforementioned lipstick, “it’ll have to be over my dead body!” 

“That can be arranged,” Margaret threatens. 

“How about I-“ you start. 

“Stay out of this,” they bark in unison, before turning to each other again. You shrug and return to the razor. You have a new appreciation for the effort smooth legs require. 

At some point they must agree on something because Margaret grabs your face and begins to torture you with small brushes and fans, pulling open your eyes and plucking angrily at your eyebrows. Whenever Margaret takes a break, Klinger’s poking you with pins and needles, tightening fabric and prodding at you to make you stand differently. 

You make a lot of noise the entire time, but your punchlines get mangled as Margaret’s hands scrunch your lips together to apply color or hold your eyelids in place as she smears pigment over them. Eventually, Margaret pulls away and you open your eyes. There’s a very alarming look on both her and Klinger’s faces. 

“What, what?” you ask, feeling slightly jittery. “Is it clownish? I thought you guys were professionals!” 

“I can’t quite believe it, but,” Margaret begins, her tone deeply perplexed, as if examining an alien culture.

“You don’t look bad, Captain,” Klinger says, almost uneasy. You blink at him in disbelief. 

“Well, I certainly feel damned with faint praise,” you say. Margaret shakes her head a bit. 

“No, I might even say you look,” she pauses, as if the word pains her, “good.” 

“What the hell is the matter with both of you?” you ask, because really, what’s the deal here? Klinger hands you a mirror and you pick it up, holding it until you can see yourself correctly. Then, you stare. 

“Oh, that’s strange,” you say unconsciously. Margaret must be good at what she does, because you don’t look clownish at all. You don’t even look bad. Margaret has done something with her various powders and poultices to soften your features just a bit, accentuating your eyes in startling ways. You don’t look like a woman, but you don’t quite look like a man either. Instead, you look like a fey creature, intense in a wild way, your mother’s blue eyes rendered electric by the black pigment. 

“You know, I would probably chat myself up at a bar,” you say, after considering yourself for a few more moments, “and only after one or two drinks.”

“Pierce, I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I think I would too,” Margaret says, in a very perplexed tone. 

“Me three,” Klinger says. You all sit in that realization for a few seconds before simultaneously returning to the pageant preparations, Margaret getting out some perfume and Klinger rustling through a bag of tasteful flats. Margaret puts something in your hair so it looks softer and shinier than usual and the end result is genuinely not as farcical as you imagined. 

By the time you are released from Margaret’s tent, what feels like the entire camp is clustered around the entry. When they see you, there is a collective inhale as everyone grapples with the strange dissonance that your new look seems to provoke. 

Then, you hear a throat clear. Everyone turns to the sound, only to be confronted by none other than Father Mulcahy. 

“Uh, Hawkeye, if I may say so myself,” the Father says, a devilish glint in his eyes. “You’re looking pretty spiffy.” 

The whole camp erupts into raucous cheers and laughter and you are swarmed, even with Margaret and Klinger running interference, every nurse offering you a kiss for luck, most on the cheek. Bigelow dips you for hers to the delight of all witnesses and you come back up beaming.

“The 8063rd radioed ahead, they said they’d be here in an hour,” Potter says over the bustle.

“When did they say that?” you ask. 

“About an hour ago,” he says, before getting pulled away in the crowd heading to the mess tent. 

“Are you ready?” BJ asks from behind you. You whip around to face him. 

“Beej, I didn’t see you in the crowd,” you say, waiting for him to lock in step with you. 

“I was up in the balcony throwing roses,” BJ says, coming up to your side. His face is tense, even though he’s trying not to look uneasy. 

“How do you like the new look? Pretty convincing, right? I might be able to get the nurses to let me sleep in their tent tonight if I play my cards right,” you leer. BJ smiles tightly. 

“Well, you’d have to win first, wouldn’t you?” BJ says. 

“Oh, of course,” you say. “Everyone loves a winner.” Since nobody is around to overhear - almost everyone is in the mess tent setting up the impromptu ‘stage’ - you lean forward and ask, “Hey did anything happen today that-“ 

“You should probably get in there,” BJ interrupts, gesturing to the mess tent with his chin, hands firmly in his pockets. “Margaret’s going to want to run through your performance with you.” 

“You're not coming with me?” you ask, taken aback. He shakes his head. 

“I want to visit a kid in post-op first,” BJ demurs. 

“Lieutenant Harris?” you ask. 

“Davis,” he corrects. You nod. Davis was a chest case that came in a day or two ago. He had a few complications in the surgery, but there hasn’t been any blood in his drainage and his pulse and pressure have been normal. 

“Right,” you say, put off by his strange demeanor. “Are you going to stick around for the show or?” 

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” BJ says, mustering up a smile. You smile at him tentatively in return. 

“Well then,” you say, when the silence becomes unbearable. “Wish me luck, I guess.” 

He looks at you for a long moment. Then, quickly, he leans in and presses a chaste kiss to your cheek, close to your ear. “Break a leg, Hawkeye,” he murmurs, before turning and walking towards post-op. You stare after him for a long time, raising your hand to touch the skin his lips made contact with, still tingling in the aftermath. 

*

Within fifteen minutes, half of the 8063rd staff shows up in a truck and Dr. Buchanan makes his debut. He’s in a red satin number that does wonders for his figure, which Nurse Marshall was right to brag about. Buchanan opted not to wear much makeup, but you still think he looks pretty, in an aristocratic way. 

You each stand on your own table and allow yourselves to be scrutinized by the panel of locals: a spread of farmers from the area and a few of the volunteers at the orphanage. Some of the orphans themselves are here to watch the spectacle and they run their hands over the soft fabric at your hemline.

You and Buchanan spend about five minutes posing on the tables, showing off your makeovers and dresses for a crowd of admirers before the Koreans convene to score you. 

Rosie stands on a table as the official spokesperson of the judges panel, clearing her throat before saying, “Dr. Buchanan, we liked your dress a lot, and we think you look good in it too. You didn’t do enough with your face, but since you’re cute anyways, you get an eight out of ten.” Buchanan curtsies surprisingly gracefully, and you like him a lot more as a result. The nurses from the 8063rd hoot and holler around his table. 

“Hawkeye, no way around it, your dress is somehow as loud as you are. Still, your face and legs are almost enough to make up for it, so you get an eight out of ten as well!” You jump for joy and your loyal fans and nurses cheer as well. 

“I can almost taste that R&R,” you hear Margaret call. 

“That means this next section is more important than ever,” Rosie says. “Let’s see your special talents, boys.” 

The guests get to go first, so Buchanan takes the stage, or table, and waves at the sea of army green.

“Uh, hello,” Buchanan says quietly. “I’d like to recite a poem from memory, if that’s okay.” 

The crowd is mostly silent. One nurse asks, “What’s the poem?” 

“Right, yes,” Buchanan says in a wavering voice. “She Walks In Beauty.” 

“By who?” another voice calls out. 

“By Lord Byron,” he amends hastily. 

“My god,” Charles breathes next to you, “the man has taste.” 

What follows is the most hatcheted delivery of poetry that you have ever heard in your life, including your second, fourth and fifth grade poetry recitals. What’s really sad is that Buchanan is trying his best, and the words are all there, but he’s so bashful that he’s falling apart. On the other hand, he maybe should have reconsidered poetry recitation in front of a panel of non-native English speakers. 

When Buchanan finally stops, there’s a sort of half-hearted round of applause that ripples across the mess tent. He goes red and then white and then stumbles down from the table. Charles leaves you to walk towards him just as BJ appears at your side, handing you your props. 

“Do you think you can bring it home for us?” he asks in a reporter voice, holding an imaginary microphone to your mouth. You smirk. 

“After that demonstration? I’ll have them eating out of the palm of my hand,” you say, and Bigelow and Margaret start a round of applause for you as you head to center stage. 

You get up onto the table, holding your hands behind your back. 

“My story is much too sad to be told,” you sing, in the opening strains of ‘I Get A Kick Out of You,’ and you see people’s faces begin to pick up. You continue to sing the first verse until you get to the chorus, at which point you pull your hands out from behind your back and begin to juggle the golf balls BJ supplied you five minutes ago. The orphans in the crowd begin to giggle and you grin. You’ve been practicing this routine for the past week, and you could do it with your eyes closed. You start to walk from side to side of the table, working the crowd, and soon even the 8063rd nurses are cheering for you. 

“Flying too high, with some guy in the sky, is my idea of nothing to do,” you sing out as proudly as you can. You finish juggling, catching the balls in your hands and throwing your arms wide. “Yet I get a kick out of you!” 

The crowd goes wild. Dr. Buchanan throws a garter at you and you fall into the arms of the 4077th as they cheer. 

Rosie pronounces you the winner by five points and the mess tent erupts, as every single one of your nurses throws herself into your arms, thanking you for their newly acquired R&R in as exuberant a fashion as possible. You get passed around from admirer to admirer in a sea of good feeling and freshly-poured drinks as people delight in you, all the while looking for your partner in crime. 

“Beej, I’m a star!” you say when you finally spot him, throwing your arms around him. He catches you easily, smiling a fond pained smile at you. 

“Next stop: Hollywood,” BJ says as you lean heavily onto his side. You smile dopily at him, swaying towards him with the natural tilting of the earth. BJ is as fundamental as gravity, the sun at the center of your little galaxy and you are helplessly, eternally caught in his steady orbit. “Don't forget little ole me when you’re big and famous,” he says, in a wry unhappy tone. His eyes are big and soft as they rest on you and you shift your grip on him so he can take even more of your weight.

“Forget you? You’re coming with me, Mr. Manager. With my looks and talent and your seven league feet, we can make it anywhere in the world.” BJ laughs, ducking his head away from you the way he does when you catch him off guard. “You and me, toots,” you say a little too sincerely, but in veritas, vino, or however it goes, “we’re going places. I’m gonna paint the town red, you’ll paint the town blue and it’ll all look purple by the end of the night.” 

BJ doesn’t say anything, just stares down at his ludicrous Chuck Taylors. You pull away a bit to scrutinize him, but he refuses to focus correctly, his features a bit too wobbly in your inebriated state. 

“Beej, is everything-“ you begin, but BJ pulls away before you can finish the sentence. 

“Sorry, I have to get some air,“ he says in a rush, before he slips into the crowd, blending in remarkably easily for his height. God, he’s tall. 

“What’s his problem?” Potter asks from your side. 

“I have no idea,” you respond. Potter peers at you. 

“You know, Pierce, I’ve been thinking about it. You’re not my type, but you’re kind of a looker in this get-up. If I wasn't wearing my glasses, I’d say you even looked good!” 

“Colonel, you’re not wearing your glasses,” you respond. He blinks at you. You blink back at him. 

“I think I see Father Mulcahy over there,” Potter says, before he downs his drink and walks away speedily. You stare after him in genuine bemusement before following his lead and downing your own drink. 

The night progresses. You dance the Lindy with every single nurse in sight and half of the enlisted men and you don’t lead once. Margaret spins you around in a dance she’s clearly improvising, delighted about her triumph over the esteemable Nurse Marshall. Rizzo gets drunk enough to ask Klinger to do his makeup, and everyone has to restrain Klinger before he commits a crime against Rizzo’s person. 

You collectively migrate to the Officer’s club when it gets chilly and Dr. Buchanan and Charles dance a boisterous waltz to something modern on the jukebox. You hop on top of the piano and sing an impromptu duet of “It’s De-Lovely” with Father Mulcahy to thunderous applause. BJ doesn’t show up again. 

The party winds down and most of the 8063rd piles onto a bus to head back to their compound. You, Mulcahy, and Potter end up as the last ones in the Officer’s club, savoring your final drinks amidst the detritus of raucous celebration. 

“Well, gentlemen,” you say, levering yourself off the table. “You’ve been lovely hosts, but I think it’s time for this little woman to make it back to her house on the prairie.” You think you may not have quite nailed that reference, but you feel like a champion for stringing a sentence together at all. 

“I’ll walk you to your tent,” Father Mulcahy says, offering you his arm. You beam at him, pleasantly surprised at his gallantry. 

“I guess chivalry isn’t dead after all,” you say, placing your hand in the crook of his arm and letting him walk you out. “It would be an honor and a privilege, Father.” 

“No funny business, you two,” Potter calls after you. You make eye contact with the Father, and both of you suppress a case of the giggles. 

“We’ll be good, sir. Scout’s honor,” Father Mulcahy says, in his most angelic voice. 

“Speak for yourself,” you say, snickering and the good Father rolls his eyes at your antics, leading you outside. 

The cold air is bracing and you sober up a bit in contact with it. Father Mulcahy winces as well, and you both huddle together a bit on the walk to the Swamp. “Father, you’ve been a good sport about this whole pageant, and I love you for it, but I got to ask you-” 

“Whether or not I would decry this as perverse?” Father Mulcahy asks wryly. 

“Well, yeah,” you confirm, feeling vaguely invested in his response in an off-putting way. “You’ve never said a word about Klinger, but this was just a little more sincere than Klinger’s antics usually seem.” 

“Oh, Hawkeye,” Mulcahy says, something fond in his voice. “Considering what we see on a daily basis, the absurd brutalities we face, the senseless violence and loss of life, how could I see anything so beautiful and joyous as what happened tonight as perverse?” 

You blink away a few tears as he deposits you on the front stoop of your tent. “Father, I had no idea you were such a poet,” you say roughly. “If I had known, I would have woken earlier on a few more Sundays.” 

“They teach a class of poetry in seminary,” he says in a warm tone. “I was considered ‘exceptionally gifted’,” he boasts. 

“You are exceptional,” you say, ducking close and pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. He blushes even as he rolls his eyes at you fondly. “Thank you for walking me home, Father.” 

“Any time, Hawkeye,” he says, looking back from the walk to his tent. 

When you step inside, BJ only looks up for a second. His shoulders tense up, but he sighs like he’s relieved for some reason. 

“You weren’t the tentmate I expected home tonight,” BJ says, his voice tinged with something distant and strange. He’s turned away from you, presumably writing a letter to Peg, though from the crumpled papers around him, it’s not his first attempt. “I guess you struck out with the nurses.” 

“Turns out even a dress can’t convince them that I’m not a cad with designs on their virtue. Meanwhile, Charles is spending the night with someone from the 8063rd,” you report, swaying into the room. Something about the dress makes you want to put your hips into your walk, or maybe that’s just the alcohol.

“No kidding?” BJ asks, still facing away from you. You walk over and sit heavily on his cot, so you’re facing each other. You kick off your shoes and recline backwards, keeping him in your line of sight. 

“Yeah, you’ll never believe who he’s with,” you respond, prodding him with your toe when he still won’t look at you. 

“Who?” BJ asks, turning to a new page. He ignores your toe so you take the opportunity to rest your entire foot on his thigh. 

“Dr. Buchanan,” you say gleefully. BJ nods and then freezes, finally turning to you with wide eyes. “Yeah, he says it’s about engaging in genuine intellectual conversation with someone who doesn’t stoop to our puerile antics for once, but I think we all know what he really means,” you say, leering. 

“I’m surprised he got away with an excuse that flimsy,” BJ says, something taut in his voice. You shrug expansively, flopping back onto his pillow and making yourself comfortable. 

“It’s the pageant, Beej,” you say, getting into it. “It blurs lines, allows for secret indulgences. There’s a reason Shakespeare had half his heroines dressing up as men and causing problems,” you ramble. “It’s about the freedom of transgression, the fluid nature of humanity and the ways we use that fluidity to navigate around structure and authority, the ways we use it to _survive_ that rigidity-“ 

“I also took an English course in college, Hawkeye,” BJ interrupts dismissively, standing up and walking to the still. You recoil like you’ve been slapped. 

“That’s not what I was trying to say,” you say, feeling vaguely wounded. You don’t know what you were trying to say, but BJ’s rejection feels more intense than usual. “What the hell is the matter with you tonight anyway?” 

“Drop it,” BJ bites, and really, you’ve had enough of his shitty attitude tonight. 

“No,” you say, because you’re tired of this. “No, you’ve been in a mood all night, and I want to know why. What exactly happened to set you off, because you were just fine until-” and here you pause, because BJ was just fine until - “you saw me in the dress,” you finish. 

BJ tenses. It’s as much of a confession as you can expect from the man. “What, if it’s Klinger, it’s fine, but if I’m in a dress, it’s a sin?” you ask in disbelief. BJ scoffs. 

“Oh, come off it, Hawk,” BJ says contemptuously, and you get it, but if that’s not the problem, what is? 

“Do you have a better explanation, because I’m all ears!” you ask, standing up and getting in his face. 

“I’m just tired, that’s all.” BJ tries to brush you off but you grab his arm and pull him around until he’s facing you. He looks just over your left shoulder, avoiding eye contact.

“Beej, you can’t even look at me,” you point out. “If it’s not the dress, then tell me what the hell I did wrong.” 

“You didn’t do anything wrong, nothing is wrong, I’m just tired, Hawkeye,” BJ evades, clearly exasperated. 

“Bullshit,” you say, trying to catch his gaze. He shakes his head and moves to leave the Swamp. “Beej, please,” you beg. 

“Can you give it a rest?!” BJ exclaims, something genuinely panicked entering his voice. “You always do this, you nag and nag and nag at me, just when I want to talk the least! I can’t get a moment of peace with you!” 

“Can you blame me? If I didn’t nag, you’d just stew in your emotions until you blew up and did something stupid,” you retort. “And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but when you blow up, I usually play the role of collateral damage.” 

“Well, maybe if you left me alone more, you wouldn’t have to be in the blast radius so often. You know you don’t have to play that role at all, it’s not like you’re my wife,” BJ barks. You flinch a bit at that, but strengthen in your resolve. Maybe he read something upsetting in a letter from home. 

“So, you admit that something set you off,” you accuse. He rolls his eyes and tries to walk out of the tent, but you get in his way, blocking his exit. “BJ, talk to me.” 

“Get out of the way,” BJ says, his voice deadly quiet, something large and dark and terrifying in his eyes. You swallow heavily, but shake your head. 

“No,” you say. “You’re going to grow up and communicate with me for once. I may not be your wife, but I am the unlucky son of a bitch who has to live with you day in and day out. I don’t care if you have to pretend I’m her, but you’re going to tell me what the hell your goddamn problem is or-“ 

BJ grabs you and shoves you up against the tent door, interrupting your ultimatum. Then, he’s kissing you, his hands running over as much of the dress as he can reach. You respond immediately, eagerly, opening your mouth to him and hitching one of your legs up on his waist, and he grabs hold of it, securing you against him. You bury a hand in his hair and use the other to grab his exceptional derriere, and he makes a startled noise, pressing you even harder into the door. 

The kiss is aggressive, almost combative, but you give about twice as good as you get, and soon BJ is making small needy noises into your mouth as you wrap yourself around him. You toss your head back against the door and he sucks kisses down your neck, lingering over your pulse and tracing his lips over your plunging neckline. His hands bury themselves in your skirts, rucking them up around your hips, and one of his thighs slots between yours, finally providing you with sweet friction. You moan into the near silence of the night and the sound jolts both of you out of the moment, making you rear back. 

BJ stares at you in the dim light of the tent. He’s almost unrecognizable as the stoic paragon of fidelity you usually live with, heat scrawled across his face, his hair and clothes disheveled if not quite yet debauched. His eyes are dark and intent, his pupils practically eclipsing the cornflower blue of his irises. You reach out and press your thumb into the swollen jut of his lower lip, smearing some of the lipstick you left behind. 

BJ leans in again, and this time he kisses you softly, tenderly, like he just took you home after an evening out, like you’re going to sleep next to each other tonight and wake up together tomorrow, like you’re not in Korea and he’s not married and the world will let you have this. You kiss him back, try to push as much sweetness into it as you can, try to let him taste the devotion you keep hidden under your tongue, the affection you wear on your sleeve. 

When you eventually, inevitably part, he rests his forehead on yours, his eyes shut tight. His hands are clenched on your waist, wrinkling the soft fabric of the dress around your hips and thighs. You can almost feel the guilt and regret radiating off of him, and you blink back the tears that spring to your eyes. You can blame them on the eyeliner, either way. 

“Hawk,” he finally says, pulling away and staring at the ground. 

“It was the dress,” you assert softly before he can say whatever devastatingly gentle rejection he has on deck. His eyes flick up to yours. “We were fighting like a married couple, you were thinking about your wife, and I was wearing a dress. That’s it. We don’t have to worry about it happening ever again. It was the dress.” It kills you to say it out loud, but it’s worth it a little to see the fear ease off of BJ’s face. 

BJ opens his mouth again, but you’re walking away now, grabbing your robe and towel. 

“I’m going to go shower. Get this stuff off my face,” you say, keeping your expression hidden from him. He nods in your periphery, and then you are gone. 

By the time you get back from the showers, BJ is asleep, or at least pretending to be in his corner of the Swamp, the dress out of sight and therefore mind. You lie down and fall asleep to the memory of his tongue in your mouth, the tacky texture of lipstick on his lips and your fingers, the way his big hands dug into your hips through the dress. 

*

The next morning, you don’t quite know what to expect. You don’t know if BJ will act out one of his interminable guilt spirals over the kiss or if he’ll just pretend it never happened at all. 

For what it’s worth, he’s normal in the showers, though there is a moment when you’re stripping down where you both lock eyes and then carefully do not make eye contact for the next five minutes. Mess is about the same. Everyone else at the table is too hungover to notice any strangeness between the two of you, though Charles looks rougher than anyone else. BJ grabs coffee for both of you and your hands brush on the coffee mugs, but you don’t even flinch. You may spend the next forty-five minutes running your thumb over that patch of skin, but that doesn’t count because nobody notices. You think. 

Most of the morning is spent surreptitiously sneaking glances at BJ under the guise of poring over your nudist magazines. BJ reads a medical journal with a focus so intense that you think the words might be seconds away from bursting into flame on the page, before he goes to his post-op shift and you actually give your magazines the attention they deserve. Lunch goes as well as breakfast except you spend the entire meal aware of BJ’s thigh against yours, a searing line of heat against your side. It almost distracts you from the roadkill Igor slops onto your tray. 

An ambulance comes around in the afternoon and you spend an hour or two handling a kid’s arm fracture. BJ comes around once to ask you how you’re doing, but other than a lingering hand on your shoulder and you holding your breath for around thirty seconds, you both play it totally cool.  
You’re in post-op for the rest of the afternoon, which mostly takes your mind off of BJ except during the long stretches of time when nothing is happening and he’s all you can think about. 

By the time dinner rolls around, you’re so keyed up that BJ’s hand on your elbow in the mess line feels as hot as a brand. You end up taking a detour to flirt with Bigelow to relieve a bit of tension and get some space, but when you come back to the table, BJ is visibly upset with you, which gets you more worked up than you would have been if you had just left well enough alone. 

You leave the mess tent early to pace in the Swamp as you begin to comprehend just how monumentally screwed you really are. You didn’t realize how hard it would be to keep your hands off BJ when you knew that it was possible for him to want you at all, but now that you know, it feels like your hands are magnets and he’s polar north. 

BJ steps into the Swamp with Charles and you whip around to face him, wild-eyed. He doesn’t seem to have an ounce of the tension he’s been carrying around all day, his face oddly blank and relaxed as he surveys you. Charles makes it to his cot and sits down, but BJ stays in the entryway, his gaze cool on you. 

“It’s a nice night,” BJ says. 

“Sure is,” you respond, feeling vaguely like you are outside of your own body as you speak. You can feel time tick slowly around you and you wonder just what is happening in BJ’s head. “It’s hard to find a night this nice this time of year, you have to go through a few catalogues.” 

“How about a walk around the minefield?” BJ suggests. You feel your heart stutter in your chest. BJ’s face doesn’t betray anything, but something about the privacy and the darkness outside makes you wonder if he has an ulterior motive. 

“Sure. If you want to save time, we can walk straight through,” you say, flippantly. 

“Oh do,” Charles drawls. “Imagine, one explosion and then an eternity of peace.” 

“Sure, Charles, you’ll love it when we’re gone and you’re the Chief Surgeon of a MASH unit in Korea,” you say on your way out. 

“Imagine how fast they’ll transfer you to Tokyo then,” BJ says, slamming the door behind him. You hear Winchester’s noises of outrage behind you and giggle with BJ as you meander towards Rosie’s. You stroll through the camp with your hands in your pockets, talking idly about the weather, until you reach a thatch of trees a bit past Rosie’s bar that sometimes gets used for more clandestine liaisons. 

Then, the two of you throw yourselves into each other’s arms. 

“God, Beej, today has been endless,” you moan into his mouth, tangling your fingers into his hair, sliding your hands between his jacket and his shirt. 

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” BJ says into the hinge of your jaw. He reaches under your shirt, spanning one of his big hands over your spine. “I kept smelling that perfume you were wearing, it’s been driving me crazy.” 

“I thought I showered all of that off,” you say as you untuck his shirt. 

“You must have missed a spot,” BJ says before kissing you again, shoving you up against a nearby tree. He moves his hands back up your body so he’s holding you against the tree by your shoulders, thumbs pressed against the column of your throat. You claw at his back, pulling him closer like you’re trying to meld your bodies together. “You left half of your makeup on too, I feel like I’m living with Korea’s answer to Ava Gardner.” 

“Modeling looks from the Klinger collection exclusively,” you say between kisses, preening at the praise. You thought your eyes looked nice today. 

“I have to gnaw at the inside of my lip to keep my hands off you,” BJ complains, wrenching his lips off yours to nibble at your earlobe. 

“You should let me check that out, I’m a doctor,” you say, grabbing a handful of his hair and pulling him back to you. He groans desperately and surges into the kiss so hard you’re afraid you’ll break your teeth for a second. 

“I want you so bad I can’t even think with it,” BJ swears into your mouth. “How could you do this to me?” 

“It was your idea,” you squawk as his hands dip under your waistband. “None of this would have happened if you had just kept your big mouth shut.” 

“God, if I had only known,” BJ grumbles, nibbling at your neck. Your eyes flutter shut at the sensation before you actually parse through his words for what they mean. Your eyes fly open again. You feel like Margaret that time you and Trapper had to sober her up before wounded arrived, dunked under freezing water. You tense up and BJ pulls away, concern writ large over his apple pie features. 

“Finish the sentence,” you say, your voice cold, almost unrecognizable. BJ furrows his brow, reaching out to you, but you recoil and he flinches, stumbling back a few steps. “If only you had known, what?” BJ doesn’t speak. “Let me guess, if only you had known, you wouldn’t have said anything, right?” 

“Hawk,” BJ says, about to backtrack, but you don’t give him the chance. 

“No, this isn’t right,” you say and you’re so stupid, you should have known better, you _did_ know better, “This isn’t a mistake you ever wanted to make. You have a wife and a kid and a dog waiting for you, BJ, you have something to lose here!” BJ’s mouth shuts. Some of the anger drains out of you. “And if you lose them, I’ll lose you and I can’t afford to lose you right now.” 

“You won’t lose me,” BJ lies. “You couldn’t.” 

“Yes, I will,” you respond sharply, because you know how this story ends. You've lived it before. “But not yet. Not like this. We’ll just pretend it never happened, okay? You’ll thank me later.” 

“Hawkeye,” BJ starts, but you’re already walking away. You walk alone for a few moments, heart in your throat, but eventually, BJ catches up with you, his elbow knocking against yours. You smile at him and look away before you see if he smiles back. This can be enough, you think. 

*

For the next few days, you honestly think the issue has been put to bed. BJ subsides into his familiar self, not distant but not, let’s say, pursuing certain intimacies anymore. He’s a little more quiet than usual, but you would expect no less from him and honestly, you’re not feeling particularly talkative yourself. Out of all the reasons why your love for BJ is doomed, you never thought that the most critical obstacle would be _you_. Honestly, even now you’re still kicking yourself. 

Still, you know that this is the happiest ending possible for this story. You’ve lived it so many different ways at this point that you can almost predict the ending beat for beat. Kyung-soon left and took part of your heart with you. So did Trapper, so did Carlye, and so did Tommy, in a sense. Eventually, BJ will leave you too, because he never promised to stay, because the first thing you fell in love with about him was his unending devotion, to his wife, to his family, to his promises. If BJ lost that, he’d lose everything. So you can’t have him. And more importantly, you won’t let him have you, even if it kills you. 

Unfortunately, you don’t get enough down time to ponder that reality before the war interrupts your reverie with wounded. You get notice that the Army is planning on retaking Hill 404 and to expect around two hundred casualties. You get three hundred instead. 

The hours in the operating room seem to warp time and space itself. The world condenses into the OR, the bodies coming through a mobius conveyor belt that rotates the same wounds in the same soldiers, children all of them. BJ stands at your back as you cut into your fifteenth or fiftieth chest, letting you lean on him when your knees get wobbly and your feet get tired. He does the same between patients, letting you support the back of your head against his. 

You don’t lose any kids for the first nineteen hours of the push. Then, in the six hour aftershock, you lose two. 

It’s not your fault, or so the rest of the Surgical staff tells you. The first kid fought the nurses during pre-op, wouldn't let any of them get any blood or plasma into him until his situation was critical. There had been so many other cases that needed their attention that by the time he got on your table, he only had about fifteen minutes of life in him anyway, which was exactly enough time for you to get invested. You tried open heart massage on him, but it only prolonged the inevitable, when other boys were waiting on the line. The second boy died while you were trying to revive the first. 

You don’t speak for the rest of the shift. BJ tries to bait you into talking, but you can’t bring yourself back into the room enough to be miserable, much less joke around. Eventually BJ starts singing instead, low soft songs that you’ve mentioned enjoying in the past. Charles makes a token protest, but Margaret shushes him, and your last forty-five minutes on duty are set to BJ’s steady voice, like a lighthouse on a stormy night. 

After your shift, you sit in the scrub room for thirty minutes longer than anyone else. BJ leaves and comes back with coffee, which he presses into your unfeeling hands when you can’t bring yourself to take it. The warmth chases away some of the numbness, and his hands around yours on the mug are enough of an anchor that you can stand up and follow him out of the hospital. 

When you get to the Swamp, Charles is already there, fiddling with something on his desk. 

“Charles, I don’t think you’ll want to stay in the tent tonight,” BJ says in a forced conversational tone. Charles doesn’t look up.

“Hunnicutt, the day you give me orders is the day-“ 

“Charles,” BJ barks, and Charles startles, turning to the two of you. He gets one good look at you before he clears his throat and stands, grabbing a few miscellaneous items from his corner of the Swamp. 

“Ah, yes. Well, upon consideration, I do have some things to attend to in post-op and I believe I was planning on a coffee with Nurse Kellye sometime soon, delight that she is, so perhaps an exit would be, er, warranted, at this juncture,” Charles says, making his way out of the tent. You grab him by the arm on the way out. 

“Charles,” you start, but he shakes his head, tapping briskly at your hand in a way that almost seems sympathetic. 

“Don’t mention it,” he says, in a tone that could almost pass for warm, at least in Boston. Then his expression sharpens and his features are adorned yet again with his ever-present sneer. “Really. Don’t.” 

You mime zipping your lips, and he nods at you. Then Charles is gone. 

The air in the Swamp feels different without him. 

“Grab your shower stuff,” BJ says quietly. You do, swallowing heavily. You feel your failure like a neon cloud over your head, pointing you out as the little surgeon who couldn’t. Enlisted men and nurses stare at you with every expression from sympathy to outright pity, as if you deserve it. Between you and those two boys who you operated on, you’re the one who’ll live to see another day. They should save their sympathies for the families who won’t get their sons back. 

The showers are empty, and you and BJ get undressed in silence. You stand under the spray with your face under the water and let it pummel you. The water braces you and you feel some of the misery of OR slough off you. 

“Lean your head towards me,” BJ says, and you obey mindlessly, letting your head fall in the direction of his voice. BJ works shampoo into your hair with careful fingers, rubbing circles on your scalp with his blunt fingernails. You know this isn’t exactly normal behavior, but it feels too good and besides, nobody is going to interrupt and see. 

Slowly, a tension headache you hadn’t even noticed ebbs away and BJ tilts your head back under the spray, shielding your eyes from the soap bubbles. The inside of your head goes quiet and soft and you relax into BJ’s big steady hands as he holds you together. 

When you get back to the Swamp, BJ sits you down on his cot, before lighting the stove. You close your eyes and listen to him puttering around, trying not to replay the image of your hands between that boy’s ribs as his future slipped away. Trying not to replay the sound of the orderly telling you it was too late to save the other. 

Outside, you begin to hear the fall of rain. You keep your eyes closed and try to focus on the droplets as they hit the mud, the susurration of water sliding along canvas. BJ takes one of your hands in his, rubbing sweet-smelling lotion into your palms and fingers. You let yourself indulge for a second, let him take care of you the way you do not deserve to be taken care of. 

“It’s supposed to storm tonight,” BJ murmurs as he massages your joints, pressing his thumbs into the heel of your hand. You groan in pleasure, and BJ’s hands pause and then reapply themselves with even greater enthusiasm. He moves to give your other hand the same treatment, and you look at him like Psyche holding a candle over Eros’ shoulder, falling for the temptation of her love’s face. 

He paints a criminally pretty picture kneeling between your legs, your hand clasped in his and you take a moment to study the straight line of his nose, the gentle waves in his hair, You lean unconsciously toward him, a moth to flame, just as he looks up at you, leaving your faces only inches apart. You don’t know which of you moves first, but in a second your lips are sealed together and he’s pushing your robe down your shoulders, running his hands over your chest and throat. BJ trails his mouth down your body until he’s breathing hot over you, hands braced on your thighs. 

“You don’t have to-” you start, but then he’s taking you into his mouth with the fervor of a starving man at a banquet and your thoughts fly out of your head. You writhe under him, fisting your hands in his sheets until you topple into mindless delight, panting and cursing into his pillow. He rests his head against your thigh and you pet at his hair as you regain the use of your senses. 

“Alright, okay, come on, come on,” you say once you can speak again, tugging him up to you and shoving his robe off so you’re both naked against each other. He climbs onto you, pressing you back into the cot and kissing you needily. You can feel him against you, hard on your stomach, and you feel flashes of arousal jittering up your already sensitized skin. 

“I don’t know- Oh god, Hawkeye,” he stammers into your mouth. “God, Hawkeye, do you think-” 

“Yes, you can fuck me,” you answer, pointing him towards the stash of surgical lube and condoms you keep under your bed. BJ’s hips stutter against you and he stares at you like you just spoke a different language. “Go,” you command, and he stumbles off the cot to your side of the Swamp. You ogle him shamelessly as he walks away from you, eyeing his long legs, the muscles in his back, his perky rear. He catches you looking on the way back and winks, and you giggle into the kiss as he falls back into you. 

He works you open reverently, greedily, like you are precious to him, like he cannot bear to leave any part of you untouched. You spend most of your time closing your eyes against the tears that spring to them at how tender he is, the way he runs a soothing hand over your trembling thighs and stomach, how often he asks _is this okay? Does this feel okay?_ He takes his time, to your mild chagrin, but eventually you manage to coax him into you. BJ’s pupils blow wide as he presses inside, inch by inch, and you watch his face like one of those dirty films Henry used to project in his office. 

When he’s fully seated, you both halt and stare at each other as you reckon with exactly how many lines you have crossed. There was a point of no return between you, and you passed it a few returns ago. You close your eyes and try to breathe into the discomfort, waiting until the stretch blooms into that familiar tender ache. 

“Move,” you say when you’re ready. He rocks into you gently, and your eyes roll back at the sensation as it ripples up your spine, the fullness, the intimacy, that perfect pressure. You feel like you’ve been split in two, like you’ve been wrenched open from neck to navel, your inner workings on display for BJ to do with as he pleases. 

“God, Hawkeye, you’re so beautiful,” BJ breathes as he begins to move in earnest, smearing kisses across your neck and chest. It begins to sink in that BJ is making love to you, that he really does want you, desperately, carnally. The realization overwhelms you and you arch up into him, wrapping your arms around his neck as you press your lips together. He moans into your mouth and you stop thinking entirely, letting the combination of BJ’s rhythmic motion and the oversensitivity drive you into a state of ecstasy so acute it almost feels like agony. 

The storm outside muffles your less-than-stifled moans and mumbled obscenities, enclosing you in a buffer of sound and water. For a moment and an eternity, you are the only two beings in the universe, intertwined so tightly you can almost pretend your souls are touching too. BJ’s movements start to get more and more erratic against you, and you hook your ankle around his calf, pulling him deeper into your embrace. He grips your hands in his, intertwining your fingers so tenderly you almost shatter.

He finishes with a choked sob, pressing his face into your throat as his hips work, his hands clenched tight in yours. You whisper soothing nonsense into his ear, pressing kisses against his hairline and stroking his back as he shakes in your arms, the aftershocks rolling through him in waves. 

You hold him until his fingers relax and his breathing evens, before you prod him into shifting up on the cot. He hauls you close to him, rearranging your bodies so he’s flat on his back with your head resting just to the left of his sternum, his hand buried in your hair. The rain is a deluge now, and you listen to BJ’s heart punctuate the symphony of water outside. You walk your hand up and down his chest, toying idly with the chain of his dog tags as you doze together, the sweat cooling between you. 

“I don’t think pretending it never happened is working,” you say when the afterglow has faded and you’re both reasonably conscious. BJ doesn’t say anything, and you continue toying with the hair on his chest and shoulders. 

“Maybe we haven’t been pretending hard enough,” BJ eventually says. You roll your eyes and move to get up, but BJ’s arm tightens around you and you stay put. 

“This can’t keep happening, BJ,” you say with more force than you intend. “I don’t feel like your friend right now. In fact, I feel more like your mistress!” 

“Don’t say that,” BJ says, wincing. 

“It’s true! I used to wonder how Margaret could stand it, being with Frank like that, and let me tell you, the fact that I’m starting to understand where she was coming from rankles like nothing else.” 

“You see me as Frank Burns in this scenario?” BJ asks, legitimately offended. 

“If it walks like a married man and talks like a married man,” you recite scathingly. Now BJ is the one to almost roll out of bed, but you hold him in place. “Alright, alright. That was unfair, I know, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you cajole, running your hands over his chest and sides like he’s a skittish animal. BJ subsides and you both fall silent again. Outside the tent, rain falls in heavy sheets, keeping you sectioned neatly off from the outside world. 

“You know, I had this nice little life in Mill Valley. I had a nice little wife and a nice little house and a nice little career, and I was ready to live that nice little life until I had a nice little death. Then the American government snatched me away from all of that and threw me into a warzone. Enter you.” BJ chuckles dryly. “God, Hawkeye, do you remember reading Plato? It was like I had lived my entire life in a cave, and almost everything I had felt up until that point was just a shadow on the wall. I stepped out of the cave in Kimpo after a life in the dark, and there you were, blinding me.” 

“Well, in the beginning, I just thought it was the war making me feel things at heightened levels. We’ve all heard about it. Adrenaline makes people do and feel crazy things. Then, the war started fading a bit. I stopped breaking into cold sweats when I heard choppers. My heart stopped racing when I heard a shell go off in the middle of the night. I started being able to handle longer and longer OR shifts. Meanwhile, you would walk into a room or laugh at one of my stupid puns, and my pulse would spike the same way every time, like you were Pavlov and I was your dog.” 

“Beej,” you breathe, because you’ve never heard anything more romantic in your life. 

“I could have just ignored it forever, Hawkeye, I know I could have, but then, I saw you in the dress.” 

“I was something else, wasn’t I?” you ask in a leading tone. BJ nods. 

“Whatever Klinger’s asking you for that dress, I’ll cover it,” he says sincerely and you muffle your smile into his chest, dropping an absentminded kiss on his pectoral. 

“You saw me in the dress?” you prompt, and BJ swings back into the story. 

“You looked familiar and alien at the same time,” BJ says, “like the word for ‘home’ in a different language. You were standing up straight for once, and I stood right behind you, do you remember?” 

“I remember,” you say. You’ve relived the moment more often than you care to admit. 

“We were just to the side of the mirror, and in the corner of my eye, I could see our reflection. I was standing so close to you, and you had this soft look on your face, and it all felt so intimate, so delicate. I remembered my wedding night, the way it felt unzipping Peg’s white dress, and I wondered for a second what it would be like if, instead, I had married you.” 

You inhale sharply. BJ huffs out a breath of laughter. “The idea felt so familiar, so natural. And I looked again in the mirror, at you holding your breath, at my hands on your back, and I realized that the thought was familiar because I’ve been thinking about marrying you for as long as I’ve known you. 

“Then I saw you with your hair and your face all done up, smelling like perfume and I couldn’t breathe for wanting you, so I went back to the tent, expecting you to go home with one of your many admirers and for all of this to pass.” 

“But it didn’t. I showed up and told you about Charles and Buchanan,” you say, remembering the night in vivid detail. 

“You kept talking about transgression and secret indulgences and blurred lines, and all I could think was that it was the only night I could get away with kissing you, just once, just to get it out of my system,” BJ says. 

“And then?” 

“Once wasn’t enough,” BJ says fatalistically. “Turns out I’m so in love with you I can’t think straight.” 

You blink at him. 

“Oh, just that?” you ask breathlessly, stupefied. He nods. 

“Just that.” 

You both sit in that silence for a long time. BJ doesn’t look particularly happy about this new revelation, and you think you know why. 

“This doesn’t change anything for us, does it?” you ask. BJ shakes his head. 

“I lose you no matter what,” he says, running his hand up your spine. 

“Not necessarily,” you respond, stung. 

“How can I not? I can’t keep treating you like this, it hurts both of us, and it’s not like I can ask you to wait for me-” 

“Why not?” you interrupt. God, if Margaret could see you now, she would be so disappointed. 

BJ tenses. “What do you mean, why not?” 

“I’d wait for you. I’d wait forever, if you asked me to”

“I can’t ask you to,” BJ insists, shaking his head. “There might not be anything to wait for. I may never leave Peg, not even after the war. I have a daughter to think of, Hawkeye, I can’t do anything that will keep me from her.” 

“I knew all that the first day I met you, Beej,” you say, exasperated. “I’m telling you I’d wait for you anyways.”

“You deserve to be happy without me,” BJ protests, his eyes wild. 

“I’ll never be happy without you,” you respond, matter of fact. BJ flinches like you struck him, looking at you reproachfully. 

“How could you say that?” BJ sounds gutted. 

“I’m not trying to guilt you into anything, BJ, this isn’t one of my classic blackmail schemes, but I’m not going to lie to you either. You’re it for me. Whether or not you ever leave Peg, I’ll be in love with you until the day I die.” 

“What, and you think it’s not the same for me?” BJ asks defensively. You cannot believe the times this guy chooses to get competitive. 

“I didn’t say anything about what it would be like for you-”. 

“Because it is! I’ll be in love with you until I die too,” BJ argues irrationally. 

“Well then, I guess we’ll both be in love with each other and miserable for the rest of our lives,” you retort, because really, what is the fucking point of all this? 

“I guess so,” BJ snaps. 

“Fine,” you snap back and you both stew in bitter silence for a minute. The rain is starting to slow down outside. Morning trudges inexorably towards you. BJ’s arms are warm around you. 

“I think about it, you know,” you say, after a long pause. “Being married to you. I think about it all the time.” 

“You do?” BJ asks, oddly surprised considering the context. 

“Of course I do,” you say. “I think about cooking you breakfasts. I’d make you fried eggs, sunny-side up, on the weekdays and french toast on Saturday mornings. I’d have it waiting with your coffee, black with two sugars.” 

“I’d read you the paper out loud and we would do the crossword together,” BJ says, building on your fantasy. “I’d make you read the comics in funny voices.” 

“I’d wake you up early to watch the sunrise or play golf and you’d tell me to buzz off.” 

“I’d try to keep you in bed with me until noon,” BJ corrects, leering, and you smirk into his chest. His face softens. “You’d teach Erin how to juggle, and tell her stories about your dad.” 

“We’d sit on the back porch and listen to the radio,” you say. The rain has stopped and the first rays of sunlight have begun to peep over the horizon. You can feel the moment slipping away, reality imposing itself upon you again. “We’d slow dance to Cole Porter.” 

“We’d be so happy together. You make me so happy,” BJ says, a desperate edge in his voice. Charles will be back from wherever he went for the night soon. You should say so, but you want too desperately to prolong this moment, to live in this private fantasy together, your little bubble of peace in the middle of war. 

“One last kiss for the road?” you ask, finally. BJ leans in and presses his lips against yours. He tastes like goodbye. 

You’re almost about to take everything back, to open your mouth and beg BJ to reconsider, but before you can, you hear a voice on the intercom. 

“Choppers incoming, folks. All medical teams report to the landing pad. Looks like the Chinese really wanted Hill 404 after all.” 

You pull away from him and move to your own corner of the Swamp, pulling on clothes. Your body protests weakly at the abuse it’s undergone, but you’ve worked under worse conditions before, and you will again. 

“No rest for the wicked,” BJ says, pulling on some clothes. 

“And none for the damned,” you respond, steeling yourself to face the horror alone. You open the tent door to leave. 

“Wait,” BJ blurts and you freeze, looking back at him. He stares at you with big scared eyes, before saying, in a voice carrying odd stresses, “Wait for me, okay?” 

You take a beat to look at him. “Of course,” you respond. There was never going to be another answer. He pulls on his boots and makes it to your side, and you walk out into the day together.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it!! please kudos and comment if any of it was even remotely compelling! also if you want a playlist of girlboss hawkeye songs, [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7KBfDjDCmBXNvnZgC4vG4p?si=5Neo7p2tQTa8YQnJIB2ViA) you go :)


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